A 'lil HooHaa

Messing with the blogging world since 2005

life

The path that life takes you

It’s funny how life is when you look back on your working life.

A few days ago, I received some updates about people via LinkedIn. I don’t always go check things out there, but sometimes I do. After looking at the news, I often look at my own profile, trying to figure what I can do to spruce it up some.

But when I was looking the other day, it made me really think about the life of working and the paths you take.

Being a “grown up” doesn’t always mean you are on a path that you will do forever. People change jobs. People change careers. People have life events happen that alter everything you may dream about or want to do.

People just change.

So I got thinking back about myself and my path. I’ve always seemed to have something to do with either sports or media. I delivered the paper (albeit a pennysaver) as a kid. I umpired little league. My first newspaper photo and article was published when I was in seventh grade.

After high school, I worked at a weekly paper for several years before going back to college. I freelanced in newspapers and interned doing PR things.

In grad school, I freelanced for more newspapers, which allowed me to actually learn a lot more than I did in the classrooms. Then it was a daily paper before my position as cut. And now, I’m in public relations in an educational setting.

The last part is rather humorous because my own high school memories aren’t really that good. Times have changed between then and now, though. Kids (for the most part) are more tolerant and accepting than back when I walked the halls as a student.

It’s also fun to look at other people’s paths and see if they stayed in the same sort of field, or if they branched off. Or to see when people go different places – and get different views.

Life is a crazy and interesting place, that’s for sure. Our paths can change quickly, as I know very well. People in interviews will often ask where you see yourself in 5-10 years. I honestly never know how to answer that question because life can throw you curve balls quickly and everything can be altered in a moment.

For now, though, I just smile at seeing updates and seeing how people’s paths go. I know how my path has gone and I honestly have no idea how it will go in the future. Even the best plans get all screwed up at some point or another, so you never can tell what will happen in life. Some paths stay the same and some change. It’s how you react to all of it that will make it a positive path no matter the direction you go.

 

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Keep moving forward

photobeach

You can’t control everything in this world. Sometimes you have to take the punches and keep rolling. No matter what you think of situations around you — close or far — you can only control your own path and direction.

Life is still good. Life will still go on. Take a deep breath, look at the sun (when it’s out) and smile. You’ll thank yourself later.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” A ‘lil HooHaa on Facebook! You can also follow me on Twitter @softball29!

When things get a little too close for comfort

There are times in life when you wonder if somebody is looking out for you.

Things happen so fast … so sudden, that everything can end in an instant. Everything. Or something can happen that reminds you how fragile life is.

Such as this past Saturday night (Sunday morning).

On the flip side of this situation – you wonder what happened. Why did something come so close to changing lives in a fast instant? What caused it?

Let me explain.

We were coming back from a baseball weekend. It was late as we saw a night game in Allentown. It was a little past midnight and we were coming out of Hancock, a small town in Delaware County in Upstate New York. The town also intersects with Route 17/Interstate 86 (not sure what it’s called in that area), and we were coming up on the off-ramp, which is close to where we were going to be turning.

See the image below via GoogleMaps to give you an overall view of the area of which I am writing about:

image 1

As we approached the bridge area that crosses Cadosa Creek, we were driving going up if you are looking on the map.

In a moment, it got very scary as a white Jeep Cherokee was coming the opposite way – at a pretty good speed. Something happened as the Jeep didn’t hold its line on the road. See below via the white line as to what the Jeep did:

As you can see, the white Jeep came over the yellow line and well into our lane. Though it’s not like we missed him by mere inches, the reality is you only have a millisecond to react. I wasn’t driving on this night, so I give Marc some serious credit to his reactions.

The black line on the diagram is basically what we did. He hit the brakes and tried to get over as far as he could on the side (there wasn’t much room as, again, you can see the bridge).

image 2

The options were to do that, or to try and correct and go into the other side of the road. But if the Jeep corrects, then we’re going head-to-head in that regard. There’s really not a lot that one can do in this situation, so I thought the brake job actually might have been the best (after knowing, of course, what happened).

Braking slows us down, thus also minimalizing the speed of impact, if something happened. Though when the Jeep went by us, it seemed to be in the 60-65 range, so we would have collided, at a minimum, of a good 80-85 miles an hour as I’m not sure how slow we were down to.

In the end, the Jeep corrected, got back into its lane and went by us. I’d say the Jeep corrected by about three or four car lengths – give or take – and went on its way and we went on ours.

It wasn’t without some fear and “holy shit” moments.

You know how they say when something crazy happens, life flashes before your eyes? I won’t say that happened, but a lot crossed my mind in the 3-5 seconds that this all transpired. Thankfully, not everything went flashing by as we missed one another without any damage other than a racing heart beat and some deep breaths.

Incidents like this really do make you realize life is fragile. Though I’m sure we’ve all encountered something that was a little too close for comfort, sometimes you just look back at something and wonder how you walked out of it so safely when it looked like it was going to be so bad.

I don’t downplay life, but I don’t have kids and am not married. The fast-acting driver I was with the other night is and does, so it’s uber scary in his position. It’s safe to say that we were both shaking a little after the incident, but I’m sure he was a little more than I was.

It makes you think, too.

Again, I have no idea what happened with this other person or why he was that far over into our lane. But I’m sure there have been times I’ve been driving and have been tired and might have drifted. I work to wake myself up and move on. This makes me realize that if I am feeling tired, I need to stop, stretch, wake up. The other things I think I’ve done well – as in I don’t drink and drive, and I’ve slowed down a bit when driving as I’ve aged.

This also makes me remember how fragile life is. Don’t take things for granted. Express yourself the best you can. Smile. Breathe. Life isn’t bad. It may not always be perfect, but it’s not a bad thing to be alive these days. So take a moment to say hi to friends – new and old – and family and make sure you keep in touch the best you can.

Life shouldn’t be taken for granted — ever.

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Dreamers and realists — walking along together

In this world, it seems like there are two types of people, for the most part – dreamers and realists. It’s a pretty powerful piece from a comedic sitcom, that quote above, and it can get one thinking.

Such as where do I stand on this spectrum?

I’ve always considered myself a bit of a dreamer. OK, maybe a big dreamer. Though reality keeps me grounded some, I tend to drift off in dreams. It can be about a lot of things and, more often than not, these dreams fizzle away.

It’s part of the problem about being a dream with realist tendencies – dreams often don’t come true.

I could talk about countless dreams – of lottery wins, to travel, to crushes, to jobs, to wanting to just be able to see somebody one more time – many of which never even came close to coming true.

Sometimes it’s based on luck, while others are more on not having the courage to push forward. Other times, reality is what squashes a dream.

But it’s the dream that keeps things pushing forward.

In my work, I drive anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half (round trip) for work each day. That gives me a lot of time to think and dream a bit. Sometimes the sounds of podcasts fill my car, other times there is music.

So I dream.

About life. About sports. About careers. About relationships. About what life could have been like had I chosen different paths. About travel. About baseball. About friends. About family.

You get the picture.

I’ve always been that daydreamer. The “what if” sort of guy. I think about the times in life when I let a dream fizzle without any attempts to move it forward and think about what that could have done in my life in regard to the path I’ve taken.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret things I’ve done. I like a lot of where I am in life and much of this could be fully changed had I taken different steps along the way. Still, I can’t help but to wonder …

These types of things happen probably weekly for me. Different dreams, hopes, thoughts, and wonderment come across my mind. I try and wrestle with things and then, eventually, the dream poofs away into the clouds.

The thing about dreamers is there are often many, many dreams. They all can’t come true. Hell, a high percentage of these dreams probably never come true.

It’s part of life – and reality.

To make dreams come true, a dreamer needs a care-free attitude and a lot of courage. I can’t say I always have that sort of attitude when it comes to dreams and, honestly, some fears in life (a future blog post) will sometimes get in the way.

That’s part of life as a dreamer, though.

How about you? Are you a dreamer or a realist? A little of both? Does any of this resonate with you? Chime in below with your thoughts!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please Like HooHaa Blog on Facebook!